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PSYCHOIANCY. 



SPIRIT-RAPPINGS AND TABLE-TIPPINGS 
EXPOSED. 



BY 



PEOF. CHAELES G. JPAQE, M. D. ; Etc. 



NEW-YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

200 BROADWAY. 






y ? 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the ye'ar 1853, by 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New- York. 



SPIRIT-RAPPINGS. 



The wide-spread and alarming mania of Spirit- 
rappings and table-tipping s of the present day, 
is only a modification, or new garb, of devilish 
instrumentalities, operating through human machi- 
nations, which have infested society from time 
immemorial. We start with this proposition, harsh 
as it may sound to some, and if we should fail to 
sustain it by facts, reasoning, and common sense, 
to the entire satisfaction of all, we still say to the 
unbelievers in our doctrine, show us the proof to 
the contrary ; and with a confidence firm as our 
belief in Holy Writ, and the unfailing laws of God, 
we challenge the exhibition to our senses of any 
performance with spirit-rappings, or table-tippings, 
which cannot be explained upon natural, and well 
known natural laws. We will here premise, that 



4 Spirit-Kappings. 

we do not attribute to Satan any direct agency in 
this matter other than has always been ascribed to • 
him in the crimes and misdeeds of man from the 
fall down to this present time. That neither the 
"prince of the power of the air/' nor his imps 
(unless they be in human shape), rap out intelli- 
gence by sounds, get under tables and tip them 
over, swing them round, or perform any of these 
extraordinary feats, which so many among us are 
determined to invest with supernatural character 
and origin. Nor do we consider that the arch- 
enemy of man has brought any new power or 
agency into operation to further his mischievous 
designs. Far from it. A new power? It 
would frustrate his schemes in their very inception. 
A new power ? It is a lawful subject of pursuit, 
to the very exhaustion of mental resources. A 
new power? Its bare mention is an arousing 
signal to the devotees of science, and upon the 
first scintillation of plausibility, the midnight 
lamp will burn throughout Christendom, till its 
capabilities and subserviency to man's actual wants 
are unfolded. No ! the tempter knows his game 
and tools, and perhaps his own limits, all too well 



Spirit-Rappings. 5 

to give to man a new and legitimate object of 
research, and thus divert investigation from hallu- 
cinating and mercenary sorceries to that which is 
lawful and truthful. He works with his own and 
old tools, upon and through that most successful 
instrumentality, over which, by long and dire ex- 
perience, he has acquired such mighty ascendency 
— the human soul. This is his pliant tool, and 
here his stronghold. To those who regard the 
Scriptural account of the devil's existence and 
agency as allegorical, our argument, in its cardinal 
character and bearing, will apply with the same 
force, for they have only to invest the mind of man 
with all the force and attributes that the allegory 
gives to both combined, and we address ourselves 
to them with the same interest and hope of success 
as with those who believe the Scripture implicitly 
to the letter. To all alike, the deep, untiring, un- 
ending wiles of the human soul are familiar themes, 
and it matters but little to our present purpose, 
whether these impious transactions proceed from 
the main-spring of unaided, uninspired thought, 
or whether the unheeding thought is impressed by 
supernal powers. There is in the mind a strong 



6 Spirit-Raspings. 

and often morbid appetency for tiie supernatural 
and marvellous ; a proneness to inquire beyond 
what is actually revealed ; and, worse than this, a 
prurience of power, either real or specious, to exalt 
one above his fellow mortals, and give the weight 
of Divine authority to his words and acts. From 
this desire originates priestcraft, astrology and 
sorcery, and in the former habitude of the mind 
lies the secret of their success and perpetuation. 
It has been a real source of distress to us, to see 
professing Christians, even among our immediate 
friends, pushing their inquiries beyond the confines 
of realities into the spirit-world, forgetting or mis- 
apprehending the injunctions of Scripture forbid- 
ding us to look into such things, and unconscious 
of the fact, that their well-meant invocations of 
spirits by the tipping of tables and rappings, was, 
in every step and act of repetition, lending encour- 
agement to the mercenary and nefarious schemes 
of a certain set of vile impostors, who originated 
the cheat, and were continuing its practice for the 
sake of filthy lucre. To them, and to all, we say 
Stop ! ere this temerity be visited with the right- 
eous judgments of an offended Deity, who has pro- 



Spirit-Kappings. *J 

nounced, in his holy oracles, in clear and unmis- 
takable language, his malediction of sorcery and 
witchcraft ; has set the bounds of human inquiry 
where time stops and eternity begins, and sealed 
up the future in impenetrable mystery ; who has 
refused to the yearning hearts of fond and bereaved 
parents all knowledge of their dear departed, save 
the hopes and consolations of the Scripture. What ! 
shall the Great Judgment be anticipated, and 
the archives of eternal retribution be read by the 
knocking of sticks upon the floor, or the upsetting 
of tables ? Shall eternity be made subordinate to 
time ; the immortal to the mortal ? Shall the 
silence of the grave be disturbed by grovelling 
mountebanks, or its stern abodes become vocal 
through these gross mediums of rappers and tip- 
pers? Impious! Impious! We need not quote 
Scripture against this unholy pursuit, for its anath- 
emas are full and loud, and he who runs may read. 
We know there are those who are innocently en- 
gaged in the invocation of spirits, and who seem 
to take delight in holding converse with their 
departed friends, as they suppose. We ask them 
to pause, and consider well what they are doing ! 



8 Spirit-Rappings. 

to look around, and see the devastation of human 
intellect, the fearful swellings of the madhouse 
rolls, the frightful deeds of blood and violence, and 
the stupendous frauds, all begotten of this monster 
mania ! Are these the fruits of legitimate and 
holy deeds ? Are these your consolations while at 
your spiritual shrines ? Do they not bear evidence 
in themselves of their diabolical origin, and are 
they not warnings to you to beware, lest in your 
attempts to enter beyond the veil into the u Holy 
of Holies" you be struck down also ? If these 
pests of society are beyond the reach of earthly 
tribunals, will you countenance and encourage 
their career ? Shall we be met here with the as- 
sertion that there are religious maniacs, that re- 
ligious excitement makes madmen, and leads to 
deeds of violence ? We spurn the fallacy ; and 
with proud defiance, armed with the Eock of 
Ages, we hurl back the apology in the very teeth 
of the casuist who made it, and, fearless of his 
replication, triumphantly assert that the true re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ, whose first fruits and very 
essence is peace to the soul, never drove any 

BODY MAD. 



Spirit-Rappings. 9 

We profess a profound reverence for all that 
is holy, and from our earliest recollection have been 
imbued with a deep dread of profanity in any 
shape, and approached this mockery of high 
Heaven with some reluctance, unwilling that our 
veneration should suffer so much violence. But 
we felt justified, in the full assurance that this 
thing was not of Heaven, but of men. For the 
sake of unravelling this imposture and illusion, 
for this purpose alone, we have put ourselves fre- 
quently in the attitude of dupes of these impos- 
tors, and feigning for a time conviction and conver- 
sion, have led them on till they were completely 
baffled in every attempt to perform their tricks, and 
the spirits became powerless and silent as the mor- 
tal tenements they once actuated. When we first 
sat down to a table with a few well-meaning and 
particular family friends to conjure spirits, we con- 
fess to a momentary feeling of horripilation, not 
from fear of meeting a visitor from another world, 
but from the impression that the very act was heav- 
en-daring and profane. But when we came to 
utter the Bapper's Shibboleth, " If there are any 
spirits present , will they please to signify it by tip 
1* 



10 Spirit-Rappings. 

ping the table?" the thoughts of sacrilege vanished, 
and were immediately supplanted by an irresistible 
sense of the ridiculous, and the smile and the laugh 
rose above all convictions of solemnity or irrever- 
ence. "Will the spirits please to tip the table?" 
was again and again reiterated, but no table tipped 
for us. Perhaps we are not " mediums/' said one. 
" The spirits have declared that I am a medium," 
said another ; but that Great Exorcist, common 
sense, was present and prevalent on this occasion; 
and the spirits would not communicate, and the 
table would not tip, certainly not, of itself. We 
introduced every variety of manipulation of cross- 
ing hands, interlocking fingers, and, in spite of all, 
and the most patient persistence, the table proved 
true to its lifeless character, and the universal law 
that " matter is inert, and cannot move of itself'' 
What could have been the cause of this abortive 
conjuration ? Were the spirits present, and not 
disposed to gratify a certain class of dilettanti who 
were present ? Were they jesting and teazing, or 
in bad humor with our persons, our fixtures, or our 
espionage ? For we had heard from very respect- 
able sources, of the spirits jesting and taunting 



Spirit-R appings. 1 1 

those present on such occasions. Or were they far 
away on some errand of duty, or busy and monop- 
olized for some special tippings elsewhere ? This 
last idea seems to be precluded by the fact that 
certain great spirits, such as Channing, Webster, 
Clay and Calhoun, who figure so largely on these 
occasions, rap and tip in different places at the 
same time. What mummery is all this to the 
mind that believes in the omnipresence of the 
Great God himself, who cannot look upon such 
practices but with abhorrence. Are you, Chris- 
tian man or woman, one whit better for these 
doings than that woman with the familiar spirits, 
the Witch of Endor?* Are you not rather her 
disciple ? and is she not held up to you for an ex- 
ample and a warning ? Do you think that rap- 
pings and table-tippings give respectability to 
witchcraft? Is reading the future and the invisi- 
ble world by rappings and tippings any better than 

* This witch of Endor it seems was the only woman with 
a familiar spirit that had escaped death under the royal 
edict of Saul, and how successfully she bewitched or juggled 
Saul our readers all know. We refer them one and all to the 
19th Chap. Leviticus, 31st verse Ed. 



12 Spirit-Eappings. 

the doings of yonder wretched crone, who works 
out in her concealed abode the same problems by 
packs of c^ids and mystical incantations ? Are 
you not ministering encouragement to her hag- 
ship, and pursuing her very vocation, though under 
another name ? Shall not this veritable beldame 
rise up in judgment, and plead in justification 
of fortune-telling the example of the Christian 
Church in spirit-rapping and table-tipping ? Per- 
haps you think that these seeming wonders are 
fraught with more interest, novelty, and mystery, 
than the magical demonstrations of old. Why, 
in very truth, they are contemptibly insignificant 
when compared with the witcheries of old. Eead 
Upham's letters on the witchcraft of the New 
England Colonies, Sir Walter Scott's demonology 
and witchcraft, and see how the rappings and 
tippings dwindle before the performances of the 
witches of yore. After reading these, study well 
Sir David Brewster's Natural Magic — a book that 
should be in the hands of every one who takes in- 
terest in these marvels of the day. There you 
will see how phenomena, at first sight inexplicable, 
are solved by the touch-stones of science and com- 



Spirit-Rappings. 1 3 

mon sense. You will there find that sorcery was 
not to be stopped entirely by the gibbet, the gal- 
lows or the stake, but that the light of reason and 
science were most effectual in promoting its over- 
throw. Sir Walter Scott says of the opposers of 
witchcraft in the seventeenth century, that the 
" pursuers of exact science to its coy retreats were 
sure to be the first to discover that the most re- 
markable phenomena in nature are regulated by 
certain fixed laws, and cannot be rationally re- 
ferred to supernatural agency" (meaning, of 
course, supernatural interference), "the sufficing 
cause to which superstition attributes all that is 
beyond her own narrow power of explanation. 
Each advance in natural knowledge teaches us, 
that it is the pleasure of the Creator to govern the 
world by the laws which he has imposed, and 
which in our times are not interrupted or sus- 
pended." 

In all ages, the Church has attributed sorcery 
to the agency of the devil. If this is his work, he 
certainly proceeds upon the same general modus 
operandi as ever. As one artifice wears out, or is 
exploded by the power of science, he resorts to 



14 Spirit-Rappings. 

another ; that is, he prompts new tricks by his 
own unseen influences, upon the minds of those 
who become his willing instruments. The most 
gross of all is spirit-rapping, and next, the subtle 
delusions of mesmerism, and table-tippings. We 
cannot stop here to discuss mesmerism, for what- 
ever there may be in it of lawful inquiry, surely 
the sending of clairvoyant spirits to the portals of 
heaven or hell, to bring back descriptions of those 
abodes and their inhabitants, is sorcery of the most 
impious character. Some years ago said a distin- 
guished poet, " Satan now, is wiser than of yore ; " 
doubtless he has advanced a few degrees in stra- 
tegy, since Pope's time, and as the light and power 
of science and wisdom increase, so does he deepen 
his plots and shift his points of attack. Now we 
will repeat here, that it is entirely immaterial to 
our purpose whether our readers believe in the 
seen or unseen, direct or indirect influences of the 
devil upon mind or matter, or in neither one nor 
the other. If they do not believe that he " goes 
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may 
devour/' if they do not believe in the existence of 
such a malignant being, they have only this alter- 



Spirit-Rappings. 15 

native, that they must find the devil's equivalent in 
the human heart, which though a less palatable 
doctrine, will answer the design of this argument, 
which is to show that these pretended wonders of 
knocks and table movements are illusory, nefari- 
ous and mischievous, originating chiefly from evil- 
minded persons, and perpetuated by the indiffer- 
ence of careless observers, the connivance of others, 
and mainly by the fanaticism, ignorance, and credu- 
lousness of a large class of persons found in every 
community. These have been recognized in all 
ages* as the principal ingredients in sorcery, but 
there is yet another element which is doing much 
to foster this crime, and although not a new fea- 
ture, yet is quite prevalent at this time, and less 
excusable than it w^as in the days of Bacon and 
Napier. Sir Walter Scott, in one of his letters, 
has this point in our discussion so strongly por- 
trayed, that we take the liberty of quoting him at 
some length, rejoicing in the opportunity of adding 
his great wisdom and authority in these matters, 
to our own efforts. Speaking of the causes which re- 
tarded the subversion of witchcraft in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, among learned men, he 



1 6 Spirit-R appings. 

says, " The learned and sensible Dr. Webster, for 
instance, writing in the detection of the supposed 
witchcraft, assumes, as a string of undeniable facts, 
opinions which our more experienced age would 
reject as frivolous fancies ; for example, the effects 
of healing by the weapon-salve, the sympathetic 
powder, the curing of various diseases by appre- 
hensions, amulets, or by transplantation." "All of 
which undoubted wonders he accuses the age of 
desiring to throw on the devil's back — an unneces- 
sary load, certainly, since such things do not exist, 
and it is therefore in vain to seek to account for 
them. It followed, that while the opposers of the 
ordinary theory might have struck the deepest 
blow at the witch hypothesis by an appeal to com- 
mon sense, they were themselves hampered by 
articles of philosophical belief, which, they must 
have been sensible, contained nearly as deep 
draughts upon human credulity as were made by 
the demonologists, against whose doctrine they 
protested. This error had a doubly bad effect, 
both as degrading the immediate department in 
which it occurred, and as affording a protection 
for falsehood in other branches of science. The 



Spirit-Eappings. 1 7 

.champions who, in their own province, were obliged 
by the imperfect knowledge of the times to admit 
much that was mystical and inexplicable ; those 
who opined, with Bacon, that warts could be cured 
by sympathy — who thought, with Napier, that 
hidden treasure could be discovered by the mathe- 
matics—who salved the weapon instead of the 
wound, and detected murders as well as springs of 
water by the divining-rod, could not consistently 
use, to confute the believers in witches, an argu- 
ment turning on the impossible or the incredible. 

" Such were the obstacles arising from the vanity 
of philosophers and the imperfection of their sci- 
ence, which suspended the strength of their appeal 
to reason and common sense, against the condemn- 
ing of wretches to a cruel death, on account of crimes, 
which the nature of things rendered in modern 
times impossible." 

Thus learned men seeking to unravel mysteries, 
for want of sagacity and full knowledge, may be- 
come the apologists of sorcery and witchcraft. 
Bacon was obliged to be a philosopher for the 
whole enlightened world ; but, in our day, so vast 
has each branch of science become, that any one 



18 . Spirit-Eappings 

of them would be full enough for a Bacon's grasp, 
and philosophers hardly dare to venture outside of 
their own boundaries, lest they become, or be con- 
sidered johilosopliists. We hear men of science 
abused because they take such obstinate, inexorable 
positions against these "fooleries." This they are 
bound to do. Familiar with the laws of nature, 
all real phenomena are alike marvellous to their 
minds, and those which claim to be miraculous, su- 
pernatural, and, par excellence, the maeyellous, they 
repudiate summarily as absurdities, knowing that 
if they cannot disabuse the popular mind, they can 
prove their irrationality to their own entire satis- 
faction, at least. Formerly fortune-tellers were 
sometimes styled Philomaths, but we think that 
as fortune-telling has degenerated into such disre- 
pute, the name is unworthily applied, and we pro- 
pose to transfer it to that class of learned writers of 
the present day, who seek to trace these tricks of 
raps and tips to the direct agency of the devil, or 
evil or good spirits ; — supposing these spirits to 
make the sounds or movements, and to give the 
communications ; — and to that class specially who 
attribute these phenomena to electricity, magnet- 



Spirit-Rappings. 19 

ism, or to the action of some power or fluid hither- 
to unknown ; in short, to all, who look upon these 
things as any thing else than impostures and illu- 
sions. These are the philomaths of the present 
day, and while they thus stand in the way of ad- 
vancement in true knowledge, they are, in effect, 
fostering error, superstition, and sorcery. We 
boast in our day of the enlightenment of the mass- 
es, the spread of education and the diffusion of 
knowledge ; but for all this, necromancy is not dead 
nor stifled ; and is now like a baleful poison run- 
ning rife through our land, upon the most prepos- 
terous foundations and pretexts. Spirits, rapping 
upon doors, floors, and tables, upsetting tables and 
swinging them about the room ? Spirits, do you 
say ? Has a " spirit flesh and blood ? " Has a 
spirit bones j muscles, fingers, heels, toes, and sticks ? 
Do spirits wear petticoats and long dresses ? A 
" newfiuid," says another philomath. A new fluid, 
forsooth ? None other than that old fluid of cre- 
dulity or gullibity, if we may be allowed the latter 
term. An "old fluid," says another. " Electricity 
or magnetism in some shape." This is insufferable. 
Since the first discoveries in electricity and mag- 



20 Spirit-Rappings. 

netism, these agents have had to take the pater- 
nity of every rare and inexplicable phenomenon. 
This is much more the case now than when Sir 
Walter Scott wrote his letters on witchcraft, though 
he says that the divining-rod, and other remark- 
able and misconceived phenomena, were assigned to 
the agency of electricity and magnetism. At the 
present times these subtle agents are the common 
scape-goats for mesmeric, electro-biological, psy- 
chological, and every other kind of phenomenon, 
the cause of which eludes the senses, and the new- 
fangled farce of "rappings and tippings " must 
fain take advantage of the same subterfuge in or- 
der to make its way to popular credence. Unfor- 
tunately, in this case an accurate knowledge of the 
laws of electricity is possessed by comparatively 
few persons ; and the electric fluid, or power of 
magnetism, becomes a very clever instrument in the 
hands of charlatans and empirics, through which 
to enforce upon the popular mind the reality of 
their tricks and impostures. To one who has an 
adequate knowledge of the laws of electricity and 
magnetism, it is more than amusing to see with 
what pedantic gravity these latter philomaths des- 



Spirit-Rappings. 21 

cant upon electricity and magnetism, contorting 
and butchering their established laws all the while, 
to explain some vile juggle, or unravel the psycho- 
mancy of rappers and tippers ; and also to see with 
what avidity their inflated arguments are gulped 
by gaping crowds, who apparently are unwilling or 
unable to swallow a single naked truth. It is often 
said that "men love to be deceived/' This is 
true to some extent, and it is sometimes the case 
that a quack will draw crowds around him where 
a truly learned man could not get a foothold. 
The truth however is mighty, and will prevail, 
and the power of learning always has been, and 
will be felt, though it may be somewhat slow to 
assert and maintain its supremacy. In verity, 
there is not one property, condition, or law of elec- 
tricity or magnetism, so far as they have been estab- 
lished by experiment and science, that would ex- 
plain rappings and tippings without doing violence 
to philosophy. A few years ago, a medical friend 
and brother came to our house late at night, in 
considerable trepidation, and wished us to go and 
see a woman who was bewitched in an extraordi- 
nary manner. At intervals she would be seized 



22 Spirit-Rappings. 

with convulsions, and while the fit was on her she 
pulled pins out of the hands, arms, and legs of by- 
standers, and tossing the pins into her mouth, 
swallowed them. We remonstrated with him, but 
though highly intelligent, and excelling in his pro- 
fession, our friend the Doctor would not give it up. 
He had seen it, believed it, but could not account 
for it, and came to us specially to ascertain if 
" electricity had not something to do with it." 
Knowing that the witches of old had a special 
fancy for pins, and fully prepared to see nothing 
more than a dexterous feat of legerdemain, we con- 
sented to go, late as it was, and as soon as the 
pretty little elf, who was lying upon a pallet upon 
the floor, had become convulsed, and pulled a pin 
from our person, and swallowed it, we discovered 
the quomodd, and the next day, with a little prac- 
tice, we were able to go into very fair convulsions, 
and could draw out pins and swallow them as 
skilfully as the witch herself. Our good friend, 
the doctor, had not even noticed that t*he convul- 
sive movements were all confined to the voluntary 
actions upon the muscles, so engrossed was he with 
the idea of the supernatural character of this per- 



Spirit-Rappings. 23 

formance. It is remarkable to notice how the 
scrutinizing powers of the most astute, fail as soon 
as they entertain the remotest idea of the super- 
natural in these cases. This girl was visited by 
hundreds of respectable and intelligent persons in 
our community, and notwithstanding a publication 
which was made exposing the trick, but few were 
able to discover it for themselves, and the greater 
portion believed it to be a genuine performance, 
and alms were freely given in sympathy for her un- 
fortunate condition. Our sympathies were enlisted 
for those whom she bewitched, and we must give 
the enchantress credit for more shrewdness than 
her customers, and we believe she reaped quite a 
rich harvest for her skill in legerdemain. We cite 
this case to show what violence is done to science 
to account for modern sorceries. Remember, we 
are called on to decide if electricity played any 
part in this extraordinary exhibition. 

Many years ago a person of the name of Han- 
nington came to Salem, Massachusetts, then the 
place of our residence, to exhibit the so-called 
mysterious lady. This lady had the power of 
naming and describing various things which she 



24 Spirit-Rappings. 

could not see, declare names written upon bits of 
paper handed to persons promiscuously in the 
audience, and a variety of performances, which 
completely astounded her visitors. Their pro- 
gramme announced that they had visited the prin- 
cipal cities in this country and Europe, and that 
her extraordinary gift of divination had baffled the 
ablest researches. We were invited to see this 
great modern Pythoness, and specially for the pur- 
pose of judging whether it was an auricular illu- 
sion. In a word, whether it might not be an 
extraordinary case of ventriloquism, for this seems 
to have been the last resort for a solution of the 
problem, with those who repudiated witchery. 
Electricity would not answer this time, and the 
science of sound had to be mutilated for the occa- 
sion. Being ourselves expert in the performance 
of ventriloquism, and familiar with the laws of 
acoustics, it needed but a moment to decide that 
ventriloquism was utterly inadequate to the solu- 
tion of the puzzle, and before we left the room we 
discerned the whole trick, disconcerted the per- 
formers very essentially, and the next day pub- 
lished a full exposure, after which the whereabouts 



Spirit-Rappings. 25 

of the mysterious lady was a greater mystery than 
her performances had been. 

A few years since ; an account was published 
throughout this country and Europe, of a prodigy 
in the shape of an electrical girl in Paris, who was 
indued with an extraordinary power — electrical of 
course — by which, when she attempted to sit down 
in a chair, it was thrown from her with great violence. 
This was one of the wonders of the day, and after 
having deceived multitudes, and become an object of 
universal interest and sympathy, she fell into the 
hands of a select committee of the Academy of 
Sciences, with Arago at their head. Does any one 
suppose that Arago ever entertained for a moment 
the idea of electrical action in this connection? 
Not at all ! Arago immediately set himself to 
the examination of the girls heels, and soon found 
that she moved the chairs by muscular effort. By 
long practice she had acquired such skill and 
power of kicking, or thrusting the chair away from 
herself, that it was always done without exhibiting 
any motion exterior to her dress, or the slightes 
disturbance of her person. So much for electricity 
or the " new fluid " in this case. This kicking 
2 



26 Spirit-Rappings. 

girl was styled the Electrical girl, or the Electrical 
ivonder. Of course she belonged to the new fluid 
class, for no one acquainted with the laws of elec- 
tricity^ would have entertained a suspicion that 
electricity had any thing to do with the phenome- 
non. 

We may be accused of being somewhat dogma- 
tical in this treatise, and perhaps we are so, while 
we have to deal with so many fanatics and prag- 
matical philomaths. For the superstitious and 
ignorant, we have some charity, but we confess 
that we have little or no patience for those among 
educated men, who are wearers of the amulets of 
electricity, magnetism, or neiv fluids. They evince 
more pedantry than penetration, and are inexcus- 
able disseminators of sophistry and error. They 
are exactly in the category of the believers in per- 
petual motion, and, in fact, the ascription of such 
phenomena as table-tippings to electricity, magnet- 
ism, or some new fluid, goes a step beyond perpet- 
ual motion, if that is possible. Most of the plod- 
ders after perpetual motion expect to get, by some 
new adjustment, a machine that will barely move 
of itself without any great surplus of power ; but 



Spirit-Rappings. 27 

according to this new table-tipping philosophy, we 
certainly should look for any amount of horse 
power, without any consumption of material, and 
no other expense than that of keeping a clever me- 
dium at hand. On the principle of touching a 
heavy table lightly (for the touch must be light 
according to rule), and thus causing by incanta- 
tions the table to tip, rise up, whirl about, etc., it 
would cost but little to move a church or a moun- 
tain, and mediums should be in great demand for 
mechanical purposes, as being cheaper and safer 
than steam engines. How strange it does appear, 
that these pseudo-philosophers have entirely lost 
sight of the one great radical principle of all dyna- 
mic science, viz., that action and reaction are equal, 
and never have attached the least value to the fact, 
that when persons put their hands lightly upon 
tables, their hands always follow the motion of 
the table, whichever way the table moves. It 
certainly appeared to us a very significant fact, 
when we first saw the performance, and if con- 
sidered in connection with electricity, or the new 
fluid, is sufficiently anomalous to require a careful 
analysis. But more of this anon, as we propose 



28 Spirit-Rappings. 

to examine the rappings first. This imposture 
originated with two girls, by the name of Fox, 
from Bochester, New-York, who are now, with 
their mother, travelling through the country, and 
exhibiting their art for money. A few weeks ago, 
the Fox-mother gave us an account of this wonder- 
ful development of noises or rappings about the 
two daughters, and from her we learned that the 
noises were kept up for a long time before they dis- 
covered the cause. At first they were annoyed by 
them, but, after a while, they became so familiar 
with the sounds, that they took but little notice 
of them, until they discovered the mode of com- 
municating with their authors, and ascertained 
that the sounds were made by spirits of the de- 
parted. According to her account, the spirits then 
rapped at points remote from the girls, but it 
seems that the spiritual habit has changed some- 
what, for since the girls have been on exhibition,* 
the spirits rap nowhere except directly under the 
girls, and about their feet, or upon something 
with which their persons or dresses are in contact. 
We had no desire to see these creatures, except to 
discover the precise means by which they made tho 
* In Washington. 



Spirit-Rappings. 29 

raps, and although fully prepared to condemn them 
before we paid them a visit, we preferred not to 
condemn them unseen, lest, on that ground, the 
clique of rappers should have some advantage over 
our argument. 

It amuses us greatly at times, when discussing 
these matters with our friends, to be told that our 
" opinions are all made up beforehand," " that we 
are prejudiced/' &c. We admit the charge, and 
say frankly we are prejudiced, and mean to pre- 
judge any effort to make black appear to be white, 
and white, black ; and declare the pretensions of 
these rappers and tippers to be as grossly absurd 
and silly, as any monstrosity in the shape of a 
proposition, that ever emanated from a crazy or 
evil designing brain. When we are told that a 
table is moved by the mere effort of the will, that 
it moves about when it is not touched, we deny the 
statement flatly at once, and challenge the repro- 
duction of the miracle, and when we are told that 
spirits rap upon tables, floors, doors, walls, or any 
thing else, we deny the statement, and challenge 
the production of any kind of rap or sound in these 
cases, which is not clearly traceable to human 



30 Spirit-rappings. 

agency. Perhaps it will be inferred that we either 
do or should take ground against supernatural -in- 
terference and miracles altogether, seeing that we 
are prepared to condemn a priori, these manifes- 
tations, claiming for themselves supernatural origin. 
We confess that one of the greatest obstacles we 
have to encounter in the course of this exposition, 
is the deep-rooted belief in the existence, at the 
present day, of miraculous powers, agencies and 
deeds, and the readiness with which many per- 
sons ascribe every thing which eludes their judg- 
ment or senses, and especially whatever savors in 
the least of religion, to superhuman agency. We 
do not mean to draw upon Holy Writ for argu- 
ments in support of our decision, upon these rap- 
pings and tippings, but anticipating the reception 
we shall meet, with this class of persons, we must 
advert briefly to the grounds of their belief and 
objection, and at the same time define our own po- 
sition. We here find ourselves arrayed against 
learned divines of the present day, who, failing to 
account for these strange doings upon the suppo- 
sition of human agency, resort to their belief in 
*he superhuman, and consistently with their pro- 



Spirit-Rappings. 3 1 

fessional calling, must evidently found their views 
upon scripture. Failing to discern the Ci [finger of 
God" they have come to their last resort, " that 
these manifestations are the work of the devil, or 
of evil spirits/' Without claiming any depth in 
biblical lore, we ask them where is the authority 
for any such conclusion in the Bible ? The Bible 
teaches plainly of the devil's agency, of his opera- 
tions upon the heart of man, and so far would such 
a construction be justifiable, but no farther. There 
is not one instance recorded, in which Satanic 
agency was recognizable by man as immediate. 
u By their fruits ye shall know them/' is a suffi- 
cient rule of judgment for any deeds, pretensions, 
or manifestations whatsoever ; and here they should 
rest content, and instead of going beyond the re- 
cord, might safely administer the general caution, 
that these "lies are of their father, the devil," 
without introducing the whole Pandemonium into 
our houses, to overturn our tables and upset the 
laws of gravity and mechanical philosophy. We 
believe that miracles were performed of old, for 
holy purposes, and no other ; that they were 
necessary to enforce the truth of revelation ; that 



32 Spirit-Rappings. 

the day of miracles has gone by, and that tfiey 
ceased when their necessity ceased. We have our 
own mode of fixing that period, but the discussion 
would be too far from our present purpose, and we 
have digressed too much already. We take the 
ground that every witch, wizard, magician, astrolo- 
ger, sorcerer, necromancer, and fortune-teller, from 
the earliest, down to the present time, has had no more 
power over matter, or the laws of nature, than any 
other person, and that whoever lays claim to fami- 
liar spirits, foresight, or any direct communication 
with the invisible world, through raps and tips, is 
either witch, wizard, conjurer, or sorcerer de facto * 

* The Bible teache sof witches and wizards with familiar 
spirits, and that they were to be put to death ; of magicians, 
astrologers sorcerers, soothsayers, and false prophets ; but 
the only account of a miraculous performance by the devil, is 
that of his first great and momentous fraud upon our race in 
the garden of Eden, and this is by some considered as alle- 
gorical. Through that act he got possession of the human 
heart, and he needs now no external manifestations to further 
his intrigues. 

Pharaoh's magicians were able,, by their arts, to imitate to 
a certain extent only, the miracles of Moses and Aaron. They 
turned their rods into serpents^ the river into blood, and 
caused frogs to come out of their hiding-places, but when it 
came to the conversion of the small dust into lice, their magic 



Spirit-Rappings. 33 

The prime movers in all these marvels are impos- 
torSj and their disciples, dupes. While the former 
are filling their coffers at the expense of the latte^ 
they must often indulge in secret merriment at th 

was baffled, and "then the magicians said unto Pharaoi 
This is the finger of GodP 

The raising of Samuel's spirit, and his prophecy of the re 
suit of the battle, was a professional trick of the witch oi 
Endor, and no more remarkable than many of the doings 
related of the rappers and tippers, and of mesmerizers who 
send clairvoyants to explore the Unknown World. Con- 
sidering all the circumstances, we think that many hits, or 
conjectures of false prophets, or fortune-tellers of the present 
day, have been quite as successful, and even more wonderful, 
than this feat of the witch of Endor. We know that some 
Commentators regard the raising of Samuel's ghost, and the" 
prophecy of the result of the battle, as the work of God, and 
not of the witch herself, or her master ; and to such a con- 
clusion they seem to be forced, if they admit any thing super- 
human about it, for it would not answer to accord so much 
powe.r to a witch, accursed of the law. How such an expla- 
nation can be reconciled with Divine attributes and teachings, 
we are at loss to conceive. The account tells us that Saul 
had sought the Lord in vain. The Lord had refused to com- 
municate with him. Shall it be said then that the Almighty 
is capable of trifling '? (for this seems to be the alternative.) 
That he made known his will through a witch ; and that, in 
Saul's (the Lord's anointed) last extremity, the Lord forced 
him to believe a lie or an accursed witch ? Is not this the in- 
ference, the inevitable conclusion ? How readily all difficulty 
2* 



34 Spirit-Rappings. 

credulity of their adherents, and particularly at the 
grave discussions of the learned clergy and others 
upon electricity, magnetism, the new fluid, the ner- 
vous fluid, or the devil's immediate agency, as prob- 

vanishes by expounding this transaction upon the very same 
principles that we apply to spirit-rapping, viz. : that it was a 
juggle, and like all witchcraft of whatsoever kind, was of hu- 
man immediate instrumentality. To affirm of such perform- 
ances that they are inexplicable, and amazing, is no argument 
in favor of their superhuman character. They are not more 
wonderful or difficult of explanation, than hundreds of tricks 
which we see, and of which we read every day, as performed 
by jugglers. To the great mass of mankind these latter are 
equally puzzling, and would undoubtedly pass for miracles, 
were it not for the fact that they are 'professedly tricks. "We 
believe in the all- pervading, all-controlling, all-sustaining 
power of God, in Divine interposition, special Providences, and 
the efficacy of prayer, as taught in the Scriptures, after our 
own interpretation. We believe that miracles are God's pre- 
rogative^ and believing thus, we conclude that the working 
of miracles by the devil, or evil spirits, would furnish an 
excuse for man's unbelief or infidelity. Most earnestly, 
therefore, do we deprecate the advancement of any theory 
(for it can be but theory at the best), which attributes these 
and kindred delusions, to the direct agency of the devil, or 
evil spirits. Such teachings are mischievous in their tendency, 
and militate with the true interests of Christianity, just as far 
and as long as they have no better foundation than theory, 
speculation, or conjecture, and are wanting in proof positive, 
invincible and overwhelming, of their correctness. — C.G.P., Ed. 



Spirit-Rappings. 35 

able causes of these strange phenomena. Surely the 
" children of this world are wiser than the children 
of light." The juggler with his legerdemain far 
outstrips any thing that has ever been accom- 
plished by rappers and tippers, but then he tells 
you that he performs by sleight of hand, and that 
unless your eyes are quicker than his hands, you 
will be deceived. If certain of his performances 
were to be introduced with some religious jargon 
and pretext, his success in infatuating the mass of 
the people, would put the rappers and tippers en- 
tirely in the shade, for the tricks of these latter 
are clumsy and poorly done at the best. Mr. An- 
derson, the professed juggler, known as the Wizard 
of the North, has, to his great credit, published a 
series of communications, in which he boldly avers 
that these rappers are all impostors, and has con- 
trived a system of rapping and spiritual communi- 
cations, quite as successful as those of the original 
fraternity. He has failed, however, to elucidate 
the whole subject, from the fact that he has been 
contented with a mere imitation, which the rappers 
will of course pronounce a counterfeit. Our first 
visit to the rappers, was in company with a gen- 



36 Spirit-Rap pings. 

tleman of high eminence in science, of keen dis- 
cernment, and very fruitful in expedients. We 
had formed no particular plan of procedure, except 
that we had agreed to feign belief in these perform- 
ances, lest incredulity might prove an obstacle to 
investigation, and keep the rappers too much on 
their guard. Eepudiating all idea of the super- 
natural, we were not liable to any distraction on 
that account, and our attention was directed en- 
tirely to the scrutiny of the performances, with 
reference to their solution upon established princi- 
ples of evidence and natural laws. If the advo- 
cates of this new " spiritual philosophy'' should 
object to this prejudication, our answer is, that 
aside from our prior experience in unravelling 
many such pretended wonders, we hold our position 
to be entirely justifiable, on the ground of proba- 
bilities, and that hitherto we have never known an 
instance in which so much of presumption was not 
in such cases, legitimated in the conclusion of 
facts. 

Be this as it may, we had resolved to follow up 
these rappings and tippings to see whether they 
were impostures, delusions, or illusions, one or all 



Spirit-Rappings. Si 

After the mother of the Fox girls had given us an 
account of • the spiritual visitation of her daugh- 
ters, they three took seats at a large circular table, 
and we joined the circle sitting opposite to them. 
We were directed to ask if there were any spirits 
present. This done, Bang, Bang upon the table 
announced the presence of the spirits. The table 
was evidently struck underneath by something 
hard, solid, material, and so as to jar the table 
perceptibly to the hand resting upon it. Our co- 
adjutor feigned surprise and alarm, and stooped to 
look under the table, when the raps immediately 
ceased. This he repeated several times and each 
time the raps ceased. We asked again if there 
were any spirits present, but no answer came while 
he had his -eyes below the level of the table top, 
but as soon as he sat up, the raps upon the table 
commenced again. He however was so persever- 
ing in his scrutiny about the table as to give us a 
good opportunity to say — for mere effect — " Why 
do you look under there, you cannot see a spirit? " 
The rappers finding themselves baffled in mak- 
ing their demonstrations through the table, were 
forced to retreat from it, and taking their seats a 



38 Spirit-Rappings. 

short distance from the table, the rappings then 
commenced upon the floor immediately under the 
girls, or about their feet. Both the girls were rap- 
pers, but one conspicuously so, she rapping much 
louder than the other, and did most of the rapping 
for the occasion. Both the girls wore long dresses 
sweeping the floor, but the principal rapper ought 
to have been attended by a train bearer. " Are 
there any spirits present? " was again asked, and 
the raps came promptly and so thick and fast that 
the spirits seemed anxious to make some commu- 
nications, so we proceeded to this part of the cere- 
mony. The instructions being given to us how to 
proceed, we commenced by asking several ques- 
tions, but to these we received either no answers, 
or incorrect ones. The programme was this : We 
were to write down three names* of spirits, one of 
which was to be the name of the spirit we intend- 
ed to invoke. We were then to put down the 
names of three diseases, one of which was to be 

* We were thus given to understand that spirits retain 
their earthly names, and answer to them. It occurred to us, 
therefore, that if we put down the name of John Smith we 
should be sure of a response. — C. G. P., Ed. 



Spirit-Rappings. 39 

the disease of which the person had died. We 
were then to put down three places ; one of which 
was to be the place where the person died. We 
were then to point seriatim to the names of the 
persons, and that when we pointed to the name of 
the person intended, the spirit would signify his 
presence and approbation, by two raps, which 
mean Yes. Names of others, or those not intend- 
ed, would be answered by one rap, which meant 
No. We made no progress, however, and, although 
there was an abundance of rapping, there was no 
communication, no intelligence, no confirmation. to 
us, of what we already knew (in the imperfection 
of human knowledge), and we appealed with an air 
and tone of assumed naivete to the rappers to 
know if perhaps our failures were not owing to our 
great wickedness ? " Oh, no ! " said the Mother 
Fox, " it will happen so sometimes/' Just then a 
gentleman entered who, it appears, was a devotee 
of Rappism, and a daily worshipper at the Fox 
shrine, for the purpose of holding communication 
with the spirit of a departed wife. As we had 
failed, entirely, to elicit even a respectable guess 
in answer to our inquiries of the spirits, and this 



40 Spirit-Rappings. 

gentleman had been more highly favored, his visit 
was rather fortunate at this juncture, for it gave 
us an opportunity to observe more closely than 
when our minds were occupied with the manipula- 
tion of the spiritual telegraph. 

]\£ r# * « & commenced at once with an ac- 
count of his previous interviews and then pro- 
ceeded to inquire for his beloved spirit. Kap, rap, 
indicated her presence, and he asked some several 
questions which were answered to his satisfaction, 
the Fox mother repeating over and over the alpha- 
bet, so fast that we could not follow to get the 
answer for ourselves, but the rappers being in 
good practice, seemed to find no difficulty in keep- 
ing pace. We saw in this individual, a degree of 
infatuation rarely to be met with in intelligent 
men of the world, and unmistakable evidence of 
entire mental hebetude upon this particular sub- 
ject. We, however, turned his fascination to a 
very good account, as we shall presently show. 
We inquired if these rappings ever occurred any 
where except immediately about the persons of 
these girls. " Oh yes/' was the mother's answer, 
" the sounds have been made in that wardrobe, and 



Spirit-Eappings. 4 J 

upon the door/' etc. We pressed hard to have the 
raps from the wardrobe, but to our surprise and 
disappointment the girl got into the wardrobe, 
leaving the door open, and so snugly was she 
encased there in consequence of a partition in the 
wardrobe, that her dress was largely in contact 
with three sides or walls of the little apartment. 
Of course we did not expect any better or different 
performance from that with which we had been 
entertained outside the wardrobe. " "Will the 
spirit rap here ? " says the girl, and rap, rap, it 
came on the floor of the wardrobe. She was then 
requested to have the rappings made upon the 
sides and back of the wardrobe, which she did, 
taking a little extra time to arrange herself for 
these performances. She then requested us to 
put our ear to the top of the wardrobe and the 
rap would proceed from that quarter. We were 
not to be entrapped by this trick, for we knew full 
well the old and trite experiment of placing the 
ear upon one end of a long stick when a sound is 
made upon the other end. In this experiment 
the sound will always appear to be made near the 
ear. We therefore kept our attention fixed upon 



42 SPIRIT RAPPING S. 

the bottom or lower part of the wardrobe, and 
while some present, misled by the artifice, supposed 
the sound came from the upper part of the ward- 
robe, we observed that the sound was produced 
where it was at first, down below, and that it was 
not modified in the least, which certainly ought to 
have been the case, if the sound had been made 
opposite to the person's ear. The girl then called 
attention to several points in the upper part of the 
wardrobe, and it appeared to the satisfaction of 
some present that the sounds came from those 
points, while to us it was perfectly evident that 
the sounds were not at all changed in direction or 
character, and in reality proceeded from the old 
quarter. Our knowledge of ventriloquism also forti- 
fied us against this trick. Ventriloquism is a de- 
ception, the success of which depends upon a cer- 
tain power of modulating the voice, a correct ear 
for imitation of sounds, and skill and judgment in 
selection of time, place and circumstances for the 
performance. When persons present are not aware 
or apprised of the attempt to deceive them, the 
ventriloquist is not obliged to be very particular 
in his selection. But when his intention is an- 



Spirit-Rappings. 43 

nounced or anticipated, his art is exercised to di- 
rect the attention of his auditors to the quarter 
from which he wishes the sound to appear to come. 
If our readers will turn to Brewster's Natural Ma- 
gic on this subject, they will find many interesting 
tricks described on this principle. Nothing is 
more easy than to deceive completely, by calling 
the attention of persons present to sounds from a 
certain position or direction, while in reality the 
sounds are made elsewhere and in a remote quar- 
ter, provided the real origin of the sounds be con- 
cealed from the sight. So it was in the case of 
the raps, with those whose eyes and expectations 
were fixed upon the top of the wardrobe. The 
trick was poorly done however, for the sound did 
not undergo the proper modification, and in fact 
it was out of the girl's power to modify it to suit 
this case. For the origin of the raps, being con- 
cealed under her dress, she could not divest it of 
its muffled character without exposing her art. It 
is particularly worthy of note here, that for these 
experiments in the wardrobe no particular spirit 
was invoked, and the raps were continued as long 
as necessary for the gratification of the bystanders, 



44 Spirit-Rappings. 

and were several times commenced without any 
particular invocation on the part of the girl, she 
evidently forgetting the dignity of the spirit in 
the excitement of the moment. This over, it was 
desired to have the spirits knock at the -door, but 
they could not manifest without the girl's imme- 
diate presence, and accordingly, she placed her- 
self against the outside of the room door, which 
was about two thirds open, she taking hold of the 
latch. We were about to take position outside, in 
the passage, when she remarked that the spirits 
would rap much better if we took hold of the door. 
This was rather more necessary than cunning, and 
the rapper knew of course that unless she or some 
one held the door, the knock upon it would move 
the door on its hinges away from her. When she 
was fairly fixed with her dress in contact with 
the door, the raps commenced upon the door. 
After this she turned her head and asked if the 
spirit would please to rap in the passage, when she 
gave rather a feeble rap, which suited the trick 
tolerably well and here the rapping ended for this 
visit. The rap from the passage explained the 
purpose of keeping us in the room, for if we had 



Spirit-Rappings. 45 

gone into the passage the trick would have failed 
for us, as we should have been able from our posi- 
tion there, to refer the sound to the right quarter 
viz., about the girl's feet. On the second visit we 
were there with our former coadjutor and several 
other gentlemen of eminence, and a lady of the 
highest respectability, strong mind, and distin- 
guished for her indomitable energy and perseve- 
rance. Our quondam enthusiast we found there at 
his matins, in company with several persons emi- 
nent in political life. One of them, a member of 
Congress, had been endeavoring to get some spiri- 
tual communications, but became so disgusted 
with the lad guessing of the Fox girls, that he left 
the room. The enthusiast, Mr. * * *, then in- 
voked his favorite spirit and proposed a question, 
the answer to which was spelled out by the Fox 
mother as before, and he expressed himself per- 
fectly satisfied with the answer. We then took 
our turn. "We put down upon paper the names 
of three departed spirits, three diseases, and three 
places. In pointing to these names with the pen- 
cil, we took good care to conceal the pencil move- 
ment behind a book, and carefully guarded against 



46 Spirit-Kappings. 

any emphatic movement which should betray oui 
will to the practiced eyes of the girls. The raps 
came for the wrong spirit, and rapped the wrong 
disease ; and place of death. We then made an- 
other effort. Three names were selected; as fol- 
lows, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun ; Webster's was 
the spirit we invoked, and they hit it right this 
time for the name, but mark the sequel. The 
answer was that Webster died of Croup ! and at 
Salem, Mass. Of course we did not indicate by 
any look or movement that our inquiries had been 
answered correctly or incorrectly until we had got 
through. Our scientific friend next made a trial, 
and his answers were more ludicrous if possible 
then those we had obtained. He attempted in 
several ways to get replies from the spirits, being 
always careful to give no clue to his thoughts by 
outward signs, but all to no purpose. The spirits, 
judging from the raps, were there in abundance, 
but no intelligence, or correct answers could be had 
from them. Next another friend of ours came to 
the trial. He had not been accustomed to investi- 
gate such tricks, and very imprudently suffered 
M r * * $ to put the questions for him. The 



Spirit-Rappings. 47 

answers came in accordance with the facts, that is 
the right spirit was designated by the raps, and the 
manner of his death. Mr. * * * put the ques- 
tions each in different tone and shape, and the 
girls undoubtedly read him as they had done 
before. Noticing this, we remarked to Mr. * * * 
that as he had been so successful we would like 
to have him inquire for us, to which he readily as- 
sented. We, however premised, that he must use 
the same intonation and language in asking each 
question, which he agreed to do, as far as he 
could. This we exacted, not because we had any 
suspicion of collusion in this case, but as we ex- 
plained it at the time, because many persons 
would unwittingly by emphasis or some signi- 
ficance indicate to the rappers, or any shrewd per- 
son, the particular object he had in view. With 
these precautions, the question was put to the 
rappers. We were to fix our thoughts upon a 
particular spirit, the disease of which the person 
died, and the place where ; the name with two 
others was put do^n upon paper, the disease with 
several others, and also the place of death with two 
others. Mr. * * * propounded as follows : Will 



48 Spirit-Rappings. 

the spirit inform us of the spirit the gentleman is 
thinking of? Kap, rap ! Yes. Will it inform us 
correctly ? Kap, rap ! Yes. Pointing to a name 
with a pencil, he asked, Is it this ? Eap ! No. Is 
it this ? Kap ; rap ! Yes. Pointing to the dis- 
eases and places, with the same question each 
time ; when the whole was gone through with, 
Mr. * * * asked, Has the spirit informed us cor- 
rectly? Kap, rap ! Yes. We were thinking of Web- 
ster's spirit, and the result was this. The rappers 
hit it right as to the name, but they informed 
us this time that Mr. Webster died of Fungus 
H^matodes, in Newark, New Jersey. 

This was too much for forbearance, but still we 
kept our purpose of investigation in view, and 
again pleaded our own wickedness as the probable 
cause of these failures. " Oh ! no/' said they, " it 
will happen so sometimes." What a deeply dis- 
gusting spectacle ! These girls and their mother 
sitting there, with all gravity, and pretending to 
be the " mediums " of communication with disem- 
bodied spirits, and dealing out such nonsense as 
that just related. 

The rappers were then sitting some distance 



Spirit-Rappings. 49 

from the table, and we asked if the " Spirits would 
rap upon the table ? " Eap ! No. " Will the 
spirit please to rap upon the table ? " Eap, rap, 
rap. "Not now." It seems that three raps for the 
expression "Not now" was a part of the spiritual 
stenography, as they had occasion to use this eva- 
sion quite often to escape difficulties. " Will the 
spirit please to explain why it will not rap upon 
the table ? " Eap, rap, rap ! " Not now." " When 
will it ? n " This evening, at such an hour," naming 
it. This last communication was spelled out by 
the Fox mother, and a time was named at which 
it would be impossible to get an opportunity to 
propound such a question, as they held their spirit- 
ual levee in the evening to crowds. Moreover, we 
had no desire to repeat the question to these trick- 
sters, to be shuffled, as we most certainly should 
have been, with the same prevarication. On the 
occasion of our first visit, Mr. * * * said that 
the spirits had rapped upon his foot, while sitting 
at a table. The experiment was repeated by re- 
quest, and very likely would have been successful, 
if we had not fixed our eyes very intently upon his 
and the rappers' feet. As it was, this feat was 
3 



50 Spirit-Rappings. 

not performed. On the second visit, we implored 
the spirits to rap upon our feet. " Not now/' was 
the answer. It was evident that we were not re- 
ceiving our money's worth of spiritual manifesta- 
tions according to the show-bill; but, as every 
failure was our gain, we were not disposed to quar- 
rel with the rappers or the spirits. One of my 
scientific friends then asked if they would not rap 
if they were suspended in a swing, or stood upon a 
pillow ? " Oh yes," was the reply, " we have done 
that ; that has all been tried." One of the Fox 
girls proposed to send upstairs for a pillow, but it 
occurred to us that they might rap while standing 
upon any common-sized pillow, for the reason that 
their dresses would cover and extend beyond the 
pillow, and thus give them an opportunity to get 
their rapping instrument down upon the floor over 
the sides of the pillow. We therefore proceeded 
immediately, while they were engaged in some 
conversation, to make up a cushion upon the floor 
to suit our own views. We gathered a number 
of cloaks, and laid them folded upon the floor, so 
as to make a circular cushion of about three and a 
half feet diameter, and so thick that we were per- 



Spirit-Rappings. 51 

suaded no ordinary raps with their instrument 
could be heard through the soft mass, or if any 
sound should be produced it would be so modified 
as to betray its origin. The Fox mother objected 
to this preparation ; but the girls said, u We know 
we can rap ; the spirits will rap there, for they have 
always done so." By way of an excuse for making 
this cushion, we remarked that one of the coats 
was silk, and that we would ascertain if electricity 
had any thing to do with it. The Fox mother 
said, " All that had been tried before ; and that 
the girls * could rap standing upon glass tumblers, 
and that she knew it must be the spirits, for these 
manifestations had been with them now for six 
years." We replied (to keep up our argument), 
" You know that there are persons who think these 
sounds are all due to some modification of electri- 
city, and others who think that electricity is the 
very essence of spirituality, f and we wish to see in 
this case how far it may be concerned in the phe- 

* The expression was very common with them that " they 
could rap, or had rapped ." Eather careless, certainly ! 

t We, of course, had no more thought of electrical agency 
here than in the rap of an auctioneer's hammer. — C.G.P., Ed. 



52 Spirit-Rappings, 

nomena. There was no resisting this, and we 
were allowed to proceed. The result was exactly 
as we anticipated. While standing upon the 
cushion they could not rap at all. The principal 
rapper saw her predicament, and took her stand 
upon the cushion so that her dress was partly over 
the edge of the cushion, but this we objected to, 
and requested her to stand upon the centre of the 
cushion, upon the plea that if her dress touched 
the floor, it would conduct away the electricity. 
A perfectly empirical reason, of course ; but they 
were none the wiser for that, and as soon as every 
thing was arranged to our liking, she invoked the 
spirit to rap. No rap came. Again and again 
the spirit was besought, but no response was given. 
She then asked her sister to come and stand upon 
the cushion with her, thinking, in her subtlety, 
that two of them would occupy so much room as 
to give one, at least, a chance to have her dress 
over the edge of the cushion. But this we were 
prepared for ; and gathered in the skirts of their 
dresses upon the cushion, upon the same plea as 
before. The result was the same as with one. No 
raps. The fact was, their arts were completely 



Spirit-Rapping s. 53 

baffled, the spirits had fled, and the experiment 
not only proved the falsity of the assertion that 
they could rap standing on cushions, or when sus- 
pended in a swing, but afforded the most conclu- 
sive evidence of the immediate and wilful agency 
of these Fox girls in producing these sounds. 

Thinking to redeem themselves from the inevi- 
table verdict of this trial, the principal rapper pro- 
posed to stand upon glass tumblers, to see if the 
spirits would rap then, as they had done on former 
occasions. She took her stand upon the tumblers. 
This elevated the lower border of her dress above 
the floor, and it so happened that one of our num- 
ber was sufficiently far from her that he could have 
seen her feet on the rapping instrument. She in- 
voked the spirit. "Will the spirit please to rap ?" 
No rap. She then stooped a little, as if addressing 
the spirit below. "Will the spirit please to rap 
now ? " No rap. She then stooped a little more, 
and by this time her dress was fairly down upon 
the floor, so as to cover feet and tumblers. " Will 
the spirit please to rap now ? " Kap, rap. This 
was very adroitly done, but the trick was clear to us. 
How strange it is, that she should have been obliged 



5 4 Spirit-Kappings. 

to stoop, and to have invoked the spirit three times 
before the answer came ; and, moreover, that she 
should look down to the floor for the spirit ; and 
how passing strange it is that these modern spirits 
should have such a fondness for long dresses and 
girls' toes. We then requested her to stand upon 
a chair, and rap. This she did promptly, and the 
rap came at a bidding. The sound was different 
from that produced upon the carpeted floor, and 
underwent just the proper modification of a blow 
struck upon a hard, uncovered, wooden seat. Here 
we stopped, having seen quite enough of this game 
of " Fox and Geese." Before leaving the room, one 
of the rappers requested our scientific friend not to 
publish them, and another stepped up to the lady 
present, saying, " You do not think that I have 
any machinery about me to make these sounds, do 
you ? " We have it on the authority of this lady, 
who seemed determined to leave nothing untried 
to lead to the detection of this imposture, that she 
asked these rappers if they would consent to a 
private examination of their persons, and that they 
refused it positively, adding that if she had any 
doubt as to the reality of these spiritual manifes- 



Spirit-Rappings. 55 

tations she would have satisfactory revelations 
made to her in her bed-chamber five weeks from 
that time. This prophetic intelligence they rapped 
out for the occasion according to their own fancy 
and usual evasive duplicity in such cases. •The 
five weeks have passed, but the lady has, of course, 
received no spiritual visitations as predicted. 

Our readers are now ready to ask if we have 
discovered the machinery or instrumentality by 
which these girls make the sounds. In answer, 
we say that our investigation is conclusive that 
these sounds are entirely at the control of these 
girls, and that we have placed them in situations 
where they could not rap at all. And if, after all 
this, we have invented several modes by which the 
rappings can be made as successfully as by them, 
we think we have discovered enough. During 
each of our two visits, we noticed, by very cau- 
tious and careful inspection, one interesting and 
significant fact — that each rap was attended with 
a slight movement of the person of the rapper, 
and that a very distinct motion of the dress was 
visible about the right hypogastric region. While 
watching this point the girl noticed us, and imme- 



56 Spirit-Rappings. 

diately rose, went to the window, and dropped 
the curtain to darken the room, which was on 
the north side of the building, and full dark 
enough before. When she sat down she drew her 
shawl over this part of her person. This was on 
the first visit. On the second visit, we were soon 
discovered watching this movement again, and she 
rose and procured a shawl with which she covered 
her person as before. We do not pretend to de- 
cide that this movement had any direct connection 
with the instrument by which she rapped upon 
the floor ; if so, it was very clumsy and awkward, 
for we have devised a mode of rapping that in- 
volves no such motion, and which we will shortly 
explain. It may have been that this move- 
ment was connected with the device for rapping 
upon the table. We are of opinion that when 
they rapped upon the table, it was upon the 
under side of the table-top and not about their 
feet. They did not, and evidently could not, 
rap upon the table without sitting closely up 
to the table. If this conjecture, as to the 
rap under the table-top, is right, the move- 
ment we saw is easily accounted for. Be it so, or 



Spirit-Rappings. 51 

be it not, we have invented a contrivance which 
raps upon the under side of the table-top ; and 
which involves precisely the motion we discovered. 
It requires but little exercise of ingenuity to con- 
trive means of producing these sounds. It has 
been stated that a relative of these girls has made 
a public statement under oath ; that they produce 
the raps with their toes, in a peculiar manner ac- 
quired by long practice. The public papers tell 
us that electro-magnetism has been employed to 
carry out this fraud. The snapping of the joints 
has been resorted to by another ; and indeed we 
can easily imagine a variety of ways in which these 
sounds are ; or may be produced. The Fox girls 
rapped upon neither of these plans. The sound 
was machine-like, and too loud for a sound that 
could be made by striking the naked or unarmed 
toe upon the floor, and entirely too loud for, and 
differing in character from, the snapping of the 
joints, and as to electro-magnetism, it was en- 
tirely out of the question in this case. The Fox 
girls visit the houses of strangers and rap always 
with the same ease every where. The raps are 
never remote from their persons but always di- 
3* 



58 Spirit-Rappings 

rectly about their feet, unless it be when they are 
sitting at the table, as we have before said, when 
the rap appears to be on the under side of the 
table-top, although we would not undertake to 
decide fully upon this latter point, as they would 
not allow us to choose our position so as to judge 
of the true direction of the sound ; for as soon as 
my coadjutor looked under the table, the spirits 
decamped and we had no rapping. There are cer- 
tain circumstances, under which no ear, however 
skilful and practised, can judge correctly of the 
position or distance where certain sounds originate. 
Such a case is exemplified in the common speaking 
tubes used in public houses and elsewhere. When 
you place your ear near the tube, the voice ap- 
pears to be uttered close to the ear, though the 
person speaking may be at a great distance. The 
Invisible Lady is another instance, for a full ac- 
count of which, see Brewster's work on Natural 
Magic. But the most remarkable illustration of 
this case is exhibited in the following manner. If 
you take an iron rod ten, twenty, fifty, or one 
hundred feet in length and strike it at one end, 
the blow is heard by a person having his ear close 



Spirit-Rappings. 59 

at the other end precisely as if the blow was 
struck near his ear. This illusion is more remark- 
able if the listener cannot hear the original blow 
through the medium of the air. To make the 
whole experiment very imposing, suppose an iron 
rod, three-fourths of an inch in diameter, project- 
ing three or four feet through the floor of a large 
hall, and that this projecting part is a continuation 
of a rod passing beneath the floor of the room, 
and concealed entirely from observation* and termi- 
nating out of doors, or in a distant apartment. 
Whenever a blow is struck upon the remote and 
concealed end, the sound not being heard except 
through the medium of the rod, appears to every 
person present, precisely as if it issued from the 
projecting end within the hall. With proper pre- 
concertion and ceremonial preparation, such a con- 
trivance as this would far exceed, in mysterious 
character, the shallow trickery of these feet-rap- 
pers. From this experiment, which we have tried 
with entire success with a rod only twenty feet in 
length, we see how closely we must look to all the 
attendant circumstances and possibilities of the 
case, before we can conclude strictly upon the posi- 



60 Spirit-Eappings. 

tion of the origin of sounds, where their origin is 
out of sight. We know that the rapping was 
always about their heels when these girls sat in 
chairs, stood upon the floor, or in chairs, or stood 
in the wardrobe, or rapped upon the door. For 
this part of the performance we had abundant op- 
portunities for examination, and if these girls will 
stand upon the floor and allow us to examine their 
feet, at the time of the rapping, we defy them and 
their spirits to produce the rappings without a full 
exposure. It is worthy of note that witches have 
always been far more numerous than wizards. 
There are reasons for such disparity in numbers, 
but this rapping business is particularly the prov- 
ince of females. There are no male rappers unless 
it be of late, since they have resorted to confede- 
racy, or electrical or mechanical tricks. There 
are no men-rappers who rap upon such an exten- 
sive scale as the Fox girls. The latter are not 
confined to a certain table, a certain room, or cer- 
tain spots in a room, or a certain house. They 
carry their " Battle-fraps " about with them, and 
go from house to house, and their "familiar sjiir- 
its " are very sociable, unceremonious, and accom- 



Spirit-Rappings. 6 1 

modating. If they will but adopt the Bloomer 
costume, our word for it, the spirits would signify 
their disapprobation by departing at once. Bely- 
ing upon their sex they trust the courtesy of their 
visitors as sufficient protection against the exami- 
nation of even their feet, and therefore they make 
bold to wear unusually long dresses the better to 
conceal their movements and rapping apparatus. 
When the girl stood upon tumblers, she did not 
venture to rap till, by gradual stooping, she 
brought her dress down so as to cover her feet and 
touch the floor. There are then special reasons 
why this kind of witchery should be played off 
by females. The Fox style of rapping cannot be 
'performed by men, or in the male attire. We do 
not attribute to woman more or greater proneness, or 
power to deceive than to man ; but when woman 
undertakes to deceive, she is generally more suc- 
cessful. She is less suspected, has fewer motives, 
runs greater risk, and incurs greater loss in the 
event of disclosures, and with the blandishments 
of person and sex, she silences opposition, smoth- 
ers inquiry, defies and escapes inspection, and 
lastly takes captive the head with the heart. 



62 Spirit-Rappings. 

Possessed of greater susceptibilities and easily im- 
pressed ; she is more readily carried away by new 
and strange fascinations, and in times of certain 
remarkable developements of sympathetic witch- 
crafts, she is the first to be imposed upon 
and most apt to impose upon herself. This 
characteristic is well illustrated in the case 
of the jerks, a species of witch mania which 
prevailed in this country so extensively many 
years ago, in which women figured so largely. 
Sympathetic action is potential. with both sexes, 
but especially with women does it overpower sense, 
reason and volition, giving rise to temporary in- 
sanity. We are however uncharitable enough to 
believe that, in many cases, upon these occasions 
the surrendry of the judgment and bewilderment 
of the imagination is not altogether involuntary, 
and that the whole operation of being beivitched 
might be arrested at a certain stage of its pro- 
gress by an effort to resist, except perhaps in con- 
ditions of extreme hysteria and nervous prostra- 
tion, or irritability. We have seen a young lady 
of the very highest respectability at a table-tip- 
ping, tugging away at the table to make it move, 



Spirit-Rappings. 63 

and all the while endeavoring to conceal her exer- 
tions, and declaring, when interrogated, that she 
did " not make the slightest effort." Can it be 
that she had become so infatuated as to forget that 
she was, or to persuade herself that she was not, 
deceiving, and yet all the while to be so assiduous 
and adroit in accomplishing her object ? Charity 
says yes. Well ! after all, there is something in 
the feat of deceiving and blinding reverend and 
grave Senators, Judges and Priests, well calcula- 
ted to whet the pride, stimulate the cunning, and 
foster the love of power in a young Miss, espe- 
cially when her arts are practised upon some 
doings not embraced in the criminal code nor 
amenable to law. There are probably — paradox- 
ical as it may seem — cases of honest deception. 
The desire to accomplish something great, some- 
thing exceeding the common course of familiar 
phenomena, may be so strong as to beget an entire 
perversion of all truthfulness, a self sanctioning 
of error, artfulness, and imposture, oblivion of 
conscience, an enthusiastic profession of faith and 
spirited advocacy of the new developments, a 
bending of every thing to conceal the fraud, and 



64 Spirit-Kappings. 

withal a remarkable preservation of the appear- 
ance of sincerity, and an air of ingenuousness so 
well put on as to appear natural, which go very 
far to inveigle those who may witness the per- 
formances. 

Of the modes we have devised of producing rap- 
pings we will not explain more than one, that 
being sufficient to effect rapping sounds without 
disturbance of the person. We have contrived a 
great many, and although we have not seen the 
particular mode employed by the Fox girls, yet we 
can rap just as well. A piece of soft metal such as 
lead, shaped like a chain shot or dumb-bell, tied to 
the great toe may be made to pound upon the floor, 
the door, the bottom of a wardrobe, or any surface 
or thing which may be under or about the feet, 
with forcible demonstrations. If any person will 
make the effort to move the toe up and down while 
the sole of the foot rests firmly upon the floor, it 
will be found that a considerable motion may be 
effected, and of course a rapping, without a dis- 
turbance of the person. A little practice will 
make perfect. In order to walk about without the 
rattling of the rapping piece, it is necessary to tie 



Spirit-Rappings. 65 

to one end of it an elastic cord, a piece of vulcan- 
ized rubber answering very well, and fasten this 
around the waist. A slight stooping or sitting 
down will leave the instrument free to work. If 
you have thin shoes or slippers on ; it may be 
affixed outside of the slippers, or you can have it 
attached to the toe, and make the slipper large 
enough to slip over the whole and slip it off, when 
rappings are called for. One other element and 
we are all equipped for spiritual rappings ; petti- 
coats or long dresses are indispensable to complete 
the invention. Whatever be the contrivance 
adopted to rap upon the floor, the whole must be 
concealed within the sanctuary of skirts beyond 
the invasion of the curious or rude. We have 
other more perfect, better concealed rapping in- 
struments than the one just described,'"" but not 
quite so simple or easy of application. Moreover 
the one described gives the double rap, (a peculi- 
arity of the Fox contrivance.) These girls managed 
their instrument adroitly, and deserve some little 

* We have made excellent rappings with this instrument, 
and accompanied them with very wonderful communications. 
—Ed. 



6 6 Spirit-R APPINGS. 

credit for their ingenuity in contriving and opera- 
ting an instrument so successfully as to baffle tlie 
scrutiny of thousands of their visitors. They walk 
freely about with their instruments; though a lady 
remarked to us that they both walked very awk- 
wardly. With local preparations "mysterious" 
rappings may be produced in a variety of ways, 
but these girls, the prototypes of all rappers, neither 
employed or needed any aid from electro-magnetic 
motions, acoustic science, or confederacy to prac- 
tise their arts, they used more ingenious and 
simple means. It is possible to make a rapping 
electro-magnetic movement, battery and all, small 
enough to be carried under the dress, but like the 
telegraph, it must be controlled by volition and 
muscular action of the operator, and where is the 
advantage of this over a mechanical instrument 
that raps directly ? There is no necessity for 
wonderment or the taxation of ingenuity on ac- 
count of these rapping sounds so long as you are 
excluded from a personal examination of the rap- 
pers. We wish very much that the civil autho- 
rities would pounce upon these rappers in the 
u very act" {for obtaining money upon false pre- 



Spirit-Rappings. 6 1 

tences) — (or some other plea) and make a forcible 
disclosure of their trappings. We believe that 
this can and should be done, and that such a pro- 
ceeding would meet the full sanction of law and 
justice ; that universal public opinion would sus- 
tain it, and we have no doubt of the nature and 
effect of the denouement If it had already been 
done, we should have been spared the labor of this 
treatise at least, and we need not advert to the 
vast amount of suffering and vice that would have 
been forestalled. 

Seeing then, that we can rap, yes, and give the 
double rap, how shall we account for the extraordi- 
nary prophecies, messages, coincidences and com- 
munications in accordance with facts ? We wish 
this had been the only difficulty to surmount, for 
it perplexes much less than the feminine security 
of these rappers against the inspection of their 
actual quomodo. We can most safely presume 
that if by search warrant, stratagem, or vi et armis, 
the rapping instrument of these Fox girls had 
been exposed to the public, there would not have 
been one doubt about the nature and origin of the 
spiritual communications, nor the question ever 



68 Spirit-Eappings. 

asked ; how it happened that these communications 
were so wonderfully true to fact. Brains, books, 
good and bad spirits, devils and all would not have 
been needed for this discussion. Indeed where is 
the necessity at all, of dragging out human weak- 
ness, credulity, and duplicity to solve the psycho- 
logical part of this fraud and forgery, if we can rap 
as well as the Fox girls (the great guns of rap- 
pism), and on the strength of our rappings tell more 
truth audi fewer lies than their spirits, what need have 
we of metaphysical disquisitions on the handwriting 
found in a drawer or any where else, resembling Mr. 
Calhoun's, John Smith's, or any other of the great 
departed ? * So far as our experience went, the 
Fox girls made few, very few good hits, and per- 
petrated a vast amount of most intolerable non- 
sense and contradiction ; enough of itself, even if 
the rappings had been made outside the pale of 
their queenly robes one inch, two feet, above their 
heads, in the aerial centre of the room, discon- 
nected with every tangible and visible thing, to 

* Whatever respect we may have for the memory of the 
great, we feel at liberty to banter their spirits if we catch 
them in bad company, and at base tricks. — Ed. 



Spirit-Rappings. 69 

have turned any sensible man on his heel instanter, 
with contempt and disgust. But for the sake of 
those who are duped or perplexed by these com- 
munications, we must spend a little breath to en- 
lighten them. When a man suspects supernatural 
agency or interference in physical, really visible, 
sensible, or tangible demonstrations, he is ready to 
believe any thing communicated at the time, and 
when he comes to the full belief in divine interposi- 
tion, his faith is perfected. Where, by long prac- 
tice, preparation and skill, tricks are performed 
with a view to imposition, it requires the highest 
degree of coolness, calmness, and self-possession, to 
resist the impression of the superhuman, and how- 
ever well fortified we may be in these respects, it is 
hardly to be expected that we should be able to 
discover the real nature of the performance with- 
out some experience and practice on our side. The 
instant the idea of the superhuman gets possession 
of the mind all fitness for investigation and power 
of analysis begins to vanish, and credulity swells to 
its utmost capacity. The most glaring inconsis- 
tencies and absurdities are not discerned and are 
swallowed whole, and so deep is the blindness and 



10 Spirit-Rapping s. 

so extraordinary in its character, that we have seen 
a convert made to spiritual rappism upon, the 
strength of one single coincidence selected from 
among a great mass of disgusting mummery and 
perversion of truth. Not one of the discrepancies, 
were of any importance with him ; one lucky hit 
of the rappers and the whole performance, errors, 
raps and all were invested with supernatural power. 
Now, how does it happen, that the believer in such 
cases does not notice the incongruities and failures, 
or does not appear to notice them. This is some- 
what of a psychological phenomenon, but might as 
well be explained on the ground of unfairness, as 
any other"; unfairness is as often the beginning 
and accompaniment of infatuation, as a mental in- 
capacity for more than one idea. A shrewd person 
can, at any time, take a promiscuous company, and 
with the imposture of rapping, or any other trick, 
calculated to divert the attention, and a mode of 
spelling out communications similar to that 
adopted by the Fox girls, make out as many or 
more wonderful and seemingly supernatural com- 
munications as they, certainly not more of error 
and absurdity. We were once riding in a stage- 



Spirit-Rappings. 1 1 

coach, with a gentleman, who, after a long journey, 
laid a wager with another that he would tell the 
occupation of every person in the coach. To the 
surprise of all he won the wager. A lady present, 
apparently much hurt, asked how he knew she was 
a "housekeeper." The reply was, Because I saw 
you frequently putting your hands to your belt — 
for the keys. Many of our shrewd itinerant phre- 
nologists, after the parade of measuring and fum- 
bling one's head, and a few master-key questions, 
will portray the life and character with a wonder- 
ful degree of accuracy. Our stage-coach python- 
ist had, during the journey, watched the motions, 
complexion, conversation, expression of counte- 
nance, appearance of the hands, the dress, — in fine, 
ever little circumstance of habit or person, and it 
so happened judged rightly in each case. It is so 
with the phrenologist, who draws his information 
mostly from similar sources. * It is so with the 
rappers ; they observe carefully, have experience 
with persons of all classes, and generally, unless 

* We believe in the fundamental doctrines of phrenology, 
but have no faith whatever in this common empirical trade of 
delineating character promiscuously by the contour of the head 
alone. — Ed. 



72 Spirit-Rappings. 

molested by some skeptic, have every thing in 
their own way. Their visitors, especially the 
dupes, betray more to these rappers than their 
own skill can eliminate, and it . is surely to be ex- 
pected that they should hit right sometimes. 
Upon mere hap-hazard conjecture, this might hap- 
pen occasionally, but with all the arts and aids of 
preparation, credulity, and fanaticism, they become 
as successful as the oracles of Delos and Lesbos. 

Before concluding the subject of rappings we 
remark briefly that a spikit that cannot or will not 
tell the truth on all occasions, is wholly unworthy 
our credence or respect ; and believing, as we do, 
that miracles are God's prerogative and all mira- 
culous power is withheld from evil spirits as militat- 
ing with the plan of Eevelation, we needed no fur- 
ther investigation for our own satisfaction, than to 
know that a very large part of their pretended 
communications were grossly erroneous; but we 
have held it to be important for the sake of others 
that the whole subject should be examined. The 
fever has somewhat abated of late, but unless boldly 
and vigorously assailed it will reappear under some 
new pretension with exacerbations more virulent 
than ever. 



TABLE-TIPPINGS. 



This fallacy demands our most rigid scrutiny, and 
none the less of severe reprobation, from the fact 
that it is engaged in, to a great extent, by respect- 
able and intelligent persons. The business of 
Spiritual Eappings is a sheer and miserable impos- 
ture, and as the performers are obliged to invent 
and manage the machinery, or whatever instru- 
mentality produces the sounds, there is no possi- 
bility of their deceiving themselves. The table- 
tipping is rather a case of delusion, or self-imposi- 
tion, though there are occasionally actors in this 
performance who betray insincerity, and some 
whose actions give the lie direct to their professions. 
How it happened that Tables were selected for 
the demonstrations of departed spirits, or the oper- 
ations of the "new fluid" is beyond our wisdom to 
4 



74 Table-Tippings. 

explain. Why should not the pump-handle work 
sua sjoonte, the cradle rock itself, or the coach start 
off without horses, as well as tables jump about the 
room at the mere imposition of hands, or the be- 
hest of those wonderful personages entitled me- 
diums ? Is there any thing in the shape, material, 
purpose, or history of a table that it should be- 
come, par excellence, the connecting link between 
the natural and the spiritual world ? or that it 
should be the great reservoir of electricity, mag- 
netism, "neuf fluid" " od" or what not ? Per- 
haps legs are indispensable to this new species of 
dancing and jumping. But, as in many of the 
best authenticated cases, the table moves along the 
floor with a gradual, slow, and dignified motion, 
without jumping, and more especially as many of 
the tables are upon castors, we see no reason why 
wheels should not be better than legs, and why 
coaches will not do as well, or better, than tables 
— for the rolling friction is much less than the 
sliding friction, and carriages could be made very 
light for this particular purpose. These tipping 
magicians are not very fruitful in expedients or 
they would have attempted long ago the specula- 



Table-Tippings. 15 

tion of a new line of spiritual coaches on common 
roads, propelled by mediums. 

But to the point. One of the first table-tip- 
pings that came under our notice was one which 
had become quite celebrated, and of which we had 
heard a great deal before we came to witness it. 
We were informed, by persons of high intelligence, 
who had been eye-witnesses, and participated in 
the experiments, that when several persons joined 
hands around this table, in connection with the 
medium, the table began to move about the room 
with force, celerity, and apparent life. That for- 
cible resistance could not stop it, and that the 
performers were hardly able to keep up with its 
motion. That, on the same occasion, heavy bodies 
were lifted from the floor by the mere superposi- 
tion of hands, without grasping ; in other words, 
that by laying the hand upon a heavy article, and 
raising the hand, the dead weight lifted itself from 
the floor, and followed the motion of the hand. 
Our informants were men of high standing, of high 
endowments and general intelligence, men of vera- 
city, and men whose opinions were worth much in 
legal questions and matters of state. Oh ! what 



*76 Table-Tippings. 

a discovery and development was here. Adieu ye 
Levers, Screws, Wedges, Pulleys ; Screw and 
Lever -Jacks, Cranes and Boom -Derricks, 
Steam, Gas, and every kind of Engine, Horse 
and all other powers, flre, alr, and water, 
Electricity and Magnetism, Chemical, Me- 
chanical, AND ALL SUBSERVIENT AGENCIES, ONE 

and all, Adieu ! Mind has subverted the laws 
of matter ; all philosophy is merged in spirituality, 
and volition has become the all-potent, all-suffi- 
cient, all-pervading power ; the crazy and pitiable 
seekers after perpetual motion are become the 
master spirits of the age, and gravity and friction 
have given way to two new controlling principles, 
levity and non-resistance. Suffice it to say, we 
laughed at our informants, and gave them a flat 
contradiction, "that they had not seen what they 
related/' It is well worthy of remark here, that 
we have never yet known any one of our acquaint- 
ance to take serious offence at the most positive 
contradictions upon this subject, — a proof, to our 
mind, that there is a secret, deep-seated, smothered 
conviction against the reality and genuineness of 
these manifestations. A curious element of our 



Table-Tippings. 11 

composition it is, that honest men find no little 
difficulty in deceiving themselves, and take so little 
or no umbrage at being charged with this kind of 
deception. 

Imbued deeply ourselves with an ardent pen- 
chant for novelties upon every subject, and a deter- 
mination to ferret out the extraordinary pretensions 
of this new wonder, we have taken occasion to 
inquire of persons, from all parts of the country, 
where these exhibitions have been made, and we 
assure our readers that although the time may 
thus have been profitably spent, the inquiry be- 
came tedious even to disgust. We heard substan- 
tially the same story from all; viz., that the tables 
tipped and moved about "without visible agency," 
and yet, in almost every case, upon close sifting 
and careful cross-examination, we found that some- 
body had hands upon the table during the whole 
of its gambols. Surely the devil has to do ivith 
table- tipping s, for we have never seen honest- 
minded persons so unfair and oblique on any other 
subject before. Not that the fiend tips, kicks, or 
propels in any way the tables, but that he tips 
either the conscience or the judgment to a deplo- 



18 Table-Tippings. 

rable extent to sustain the cheat. In every inquiry 
and investigation we have found gross and weak 
exaggeration, and have fully resolved that we will 
maintain, to the last extremity, the position of 
unqualified, uncompromising denial and opposition, 
to the highest testimony of earth, as to the verity 
of table-tipping s , spirit-rappings, or any kindred 
chicanery of miraculous or spiritual purport. We 
were much gratified recently at the remark of an 
experienced friend, that "he would not believe 
these things, even if he saw them with his own 
eyes." There was meaning in the remark. He 
would not admit the testimony of others to such 
an anomaly, and he would not trust or believe 
himself if he should give way to the conviction 
that all of mathematical and mechanical science, 
all of religion and bible teaching, and all of com- 
mon sense, was to be contravened and exploded by 
these new manifestations, promising endless per- 
plexity, confusion, crime, and insanity, and no 
good to any body. Our friends repeatedly say to 
us, "we don't see how these things can be, but we 
cannot discredit the opinion and testimony of 
Mr. A., Dr. B., Prof. C, Eev. Mr. D., Judge E., 



Table-Tippings. Y9 

Hon. Mr. F., &c ." "We think it hard to impugn 
such testimony, and why should not their word in 
this matter go as far as yours ? ;; Our plain an- 
swer is this : if we tell you that black is white, 
and white is black, we do not expect our testimony 
to be regarded ; and we take the same privilege in 
repudiating all testimony, from whatever source, 
of a similar character. It was a strong, though 
reverential, position of St. Paul, that "even an 
angel from heaven would be accursed if he preached 
any other doctrine than that which he, Paul, had 
preached/' for he well knew that an angel from 
heaven could not preach any other. 

With all reverence we say it, we feel a sort of 
inspiration upon the laws of reaction, gravity, and 
friction, based upon the experience of every mo- 
ment of remembered life, that compels us to reject 
peremptorily the testimony of our best friends, of 
the most distinguished and credible persons, or of 
the most exalted intellects, when they tell us that 
by the mere superposition of hands, or by the 
effort of the will, a table moves off by itself, or 
lifts itself from the floor without visible agency. 
There are several individuals in this place, our- 



80 Table-Tippings. 

selves among the number, who have agreed to give 
two thousand dollars to any person who will show 
to us such a feat performed by a table. We feel 
entirely safe in the offer, and moreover think it 
prudent, in case we should deposit the money, to 
deposit it in a Savings Bank paying interest, for 
otherwise the money might be lying idle for a 
whole lifetime. We might hesitate, if there were 
the remotest chance of explaining such extraor- 
dinary* appearances upon any principle of science ; 
but the fact is, these assertions contravene all 
science, and bear absurdity on their very front. 
We hear some say, gravity, electricity, and mag- 
netism cause bodies to move without visible agen- 
cies or connection. Yes ! they do ; they always 
have, and always will. But here, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty- 
three, we must be told, for the first time, that the 
human body has analogous powers to magnets and 
thunder-clouds ; and, more than this, that no reg- 
ular law of traction or attraction, propulsion or 
repulsion, governs this marvellous, new, nervous, 
corporeal, carneous power, odylic force, or what 
not, but that it is subject to all the anomalous, 



Table-Tippings. 81 

capricious and vicious directions and governance 
of human volition. 

We have too much contempt for odylic philos- 
ophy, or any such chimera or vagary, to stop and 
discuss it here. We have for twenty years, ever 
since the revival of Slumbering Mesmerism, by 
Dr. Poyen, of Lowell, Mass., made diligent inquiry 
and patient, persevering effort to obtain from among 
the great mass of mesmeric performances some 
evidence of a new principle, new force, or any reso- 
lution of nervous or sensorial agency into physical 
power other than that of a mind upon its own body, 
and have never yet seen the most faint indications 
of any such nervous power as these modern psycho- 
logists pretend to unfold to us. What ! a nervous 
force that acts exterior to, and independent of, its 
own tenement and rightful fulcrum ? that propels 
masses heavier than the body corporate, without 
rending the latter in twain ? Of one thing we 
feel assured, that this new-fangled philosophy is a 
poisonous, though covert fang, secretly gnawing 
at the very root of Christian faith. It made a 
bold sally in that coarse proposition of Miss Mar- 
tineau respecting our Saviour's miracles — too coarse 



82 Table-Tippings. 

indeed to meet with favor — and now assails, under 
a less offensive and more sophistical garb, of " odylic 
force ; " seeking to explain a mystery of the 
Bible (always an infidel effort), and to bring mir- 
acles and Grod's prerogatives within the scope and 
control of human reason and action. We ask any 
theologian who may incline to apply such tests to 
the solution of miraculous performance, if he sup- 
poses that if the mountain had removed, and been 
cast into the sea, at the bidding of the disciple 
(with faith as a grain of mustard-seed), that dis- 
ciple would have been the source of the propelling 
power, and felt fatigue, depression, or reaction in 
proportion to the mass to be removed ? If, when 
at the call of Joshua, the huge orb of earth stood 
still upon its axis, the vast momentum recoiled, 
through odylic ether, upon poor Joshua's brain ? 
We can all accept the proposition of Archimedes 
" Give me a place whereon to stand, and I will 
move the world ;" but who upon the largest lati- 
tude of plastic, ductile Od, or any other principle 
or pretext of mesmeric sophistry, would venture te 
arrest and propel the earth by the odylic, nervous, 
sensorial agency of one of its little creatures, held 



Table-Tippings. 83 

to its centre by indomitable gravity. Perchance 
it may be reasoned that from Joshua's cerebral 
fountain there issued a vast stream of odylic es 1 - 
sence, or psychological fluid, whose mighty gushing 
into space was equal to the momentum of huge 
earth, and reacting, like water in the mill -wheel, 
caused the great sphere to stop. Oh ! how hazard- 
ous, yea impious, is the attempt to explain a mir- 
acle — God's prerogative, God's interposition in 
former times, though not above human command 
upon the touchstones of prayer and faith, yet al- 
ways and forever above human hen. Our Saviour 
himself said, " Of myself I can do nothing," and 
his miracles were prefaced with prayer. God of 
the Bible ! while thy word stands, the wisdom of 
the wise and prudent shall not prevail over the 
faith, simplicity and common-sense philosophy of 
thy "Babes." 

It is painful and humiliating to see the efforts 
of certain prominent men publicly advocating the 
genuineness of these manifestations, and especially 
so when we consider the character of the assertions 
and arguments brought forward in support of their 
doctrines. One of the most recent #nd striking is 



84 Table-Tippings. 

this. Mr. Calhoun's spirit on being consulted 
through the Fox mediums as to the object of these 
spiritual manifest ations^ replies, that they are " in- 
stituted to prove to the unbelieving the immor- 
tality of the soul, and to propagate peace and 
harmony among men."* Hear it, all Christendom, 
believers, readers and hearers of the Word ! The 
great conflict and triumph of the Gospel is to be 
crowned by the deductions of these new Fox theo- 
logists, or, rather, as a more legitimate inference, 
the Word of God is to be superseded and must 
now give place to the higher manifestations of Ko- 
chester spirit-rappings and table-tippings. It is 
no less than a denial of the sufficiency of revela- 
tion for the very purpose for which it was intend- 
ed, and denying this it denies the whole. All 
other reasons, arguments, developments, experi- 
ments, doubts, suspicions and manifestations 
aside, this rapping and tipping theology has 
now taken a decided and hostile stand against 

*A recent conspicuous writer, in giving an account of 
this great communication from the great spirit of Mr. Cal- 
houn, says, its spiritual character was confirmed by the 
rising of the table from the floor, and other wonderful signs. — 
C G. P., Ed. 



Table-Tippings. 85 

the Bible, and as such it must be treated. Hear 
it, and mark it well ! The Bible is discarded as 
plainly and fully as if it had been uttered in so 
many words. In vain does Holy Writ every where 
teach of the immortality of the soul, in vain are its 
maledictions against sorcery and witchcraft, in vain 
does it pronounce " Anathema Maranatha " against 
additions to its divine pretensions, in vain its pre- 
cept " that no prophecy of Scripture is of private 
interpretation/' in vain does it declare that an 
unbeliever " would not believe though one rose 
from the dead/'* in vain have been the Bible socie- 
ties, missionary and all the mighty efforts to 
spread Christianity, all is to be blotted out before 
the new light of " Rochester knockings " and Fox 
legerdemain. But why should we indulge in ap- 
peals, tirades, irony, or satire, knowing all the while 
that we have positive demonstrations yet to pre- 
sent of the utter fallacy of table-tippings ; proofs 
irrefragible of the mundane, mortal, corporeal, 

* The actual reappearance of dead Dives, in propria per- 
sona, was declared by the Almighty as inadequate to convince 
unbelieving Jews ; but it seems that for Gentiles the presence 
of the spirit without the body is all-sufficient. — Ed. 



86 Table-Tippings. 

physical, muscular character of . table-tippings ? 
We have our reasons. If we are to encounter fools 
and fanatics, witches and wizards, devils and 
dupes, we must assail in every vulnerable quarter, 
for even demonstrations of fact are sure to be 
denied upon some impudent pretext, and in such 
cases facts are not all-puissant weapons, and re- 
quire an auxiliary guard. With the candid and 
the wavering, however, our demonstrations will be 
appreciated, and we trust conclusive. Reverting 
to the first case of table-tipping that came under 
our notice, having heard much of the extraordi- 
nary performances we went in company with a 
scientific friend to see for ourselves. The medium 
was a sprightly young girl, whose reputation for 
sincerity might have been her dearest treasure. 
The wonderful feats of this medium were recounted 
to us, and we longed for the verification. After a 
brief conversation, she with another young lady, 
(about half medium) placed hands upon a small 
table, our friend joining the circle. Their hands 
were so placed, that the right hand of one concealed 
the left hand of the other. After a while, the 
table began to move. This was natural, certainly, 



Table-Tippings. Si 

for we noticed that this medium was working very- 
hard with her concealed hand to move it. Perhaps 
her mother saw this, for she rose from her seat and 
said, " You are not tricking, now ? " " No, indeed, 
mother, I'm not tricking ; see how lightly I press !" 
What a comment was all this upon the recital just 
made by her mother to us of the astonishing feats 
of moving heavy dining-tables, tearing up the car- 
pets, moving pianofortes, &c. ! Our friend beginning 
to suspect the voluntary character of this motion 
of the table, made a counter effort with his fingers 
(better concealed than that of the medium for the 
reason that he was possessed of far greater strength), 
and the table stopped moving. But this was not 
all. We detected upon the countenance of the 
medium an expression of disappointment, and fur- 
ther, a more palpable striving to move the table, 
in consequence of this resistance, which she seemed 
not to suspect. All this seems too farcical to re- 
late, and yet the superhuman performances of this 
very medium had been described to us by eye-wit- 
nesses of the highest respectability as marvellous, 
and astounding in the extreme, and our principal 
informant was a gentleman well known for his as- 



88 Table-Tippings. 

tuteness, had some years back published an excel- 
lent work upon mathematics, and was as well quali- 
fied as the average of learned men to observe and 
decide upon such matters. His testimony was 
confirmed by several others, all witnesses of the 
highest respectability, and what was it all worth ? 
and what is all other testimony worth upon this 
aerial vaulting of tables ? Perhaps we are mis- 
taken as to the effort made by this medium to 
move the table. Let us see ! We placed a sheet 
of paper on the table under her hand, and as soon 
as the table was desired to move, behold the sheet 
of paper moved over the table-top, while the table 
stood still. Here is the demonstration of this fal- 
lacy, and although in such a shape that it may be 
cavilled at, yet it is, however, the elementary key, 
and to us all-sufficient in itself. We will, how- 
ever, develope it in such form as to be beyond all 
cavil. We witnessed, after this, many abortive 
attempts by mediums and others to move tables, 
and some other attempts that began to succeed, 
till we applied our mechanical tests, when the new 
fluid, electricity, magnetism, nervous power, odylic 
force, all resolved themselves into muscular action, 



Table-Tippings. 89 

and the tables never moved unless clearly pushed. 
As to tables moving in any way without being 
touched, we repeat that it has never been done, 
and challenge proof to the contrary. 

We have traced up many such exaggerations, 
and invariably found the story to be that the medi-. 
urns were not moving it, but merely had their hands 
"lightly" upon it. After we had baffled the tip- 
pings by the sheet of paper, we were on another 
occasion told, that paper was a non-conductor of 
electricity, and that if this agent had any thing to 
do with it, the paper might intercept the action. 
Willing to indulge the whim we substituted for 
the paper the instrument represented in Fig. 1, 





MllllllllWlliWiill l lllW 

well known as the parallel ruler. It is simply a 
flat ruler (a), furnished with four rollers (b) (6), 
upon which it rests. The slightest pressing for- 
ward of the fingers upon the ruler (a) causes it to 
glide easily forward upon the table. Of course 
the result was the same as with the paper. Upon 



90 Table-Tippings. 

invoking the spirits, or exerting the will, the ruler 
moved upon the table, while the table stood fast. 
If, then ; the paper moved, and the ruler moved, 
ought we not to infer that the friction between the 
fingers and the paper or the fingers and the ruler 
was greater than the friction between the paper 
and the table or the ruler and the table ? Cer- 
tainly. It must be remembered here that the 
rule of tipping is, to press or touch very lightly 
with the fingers. Ought we not to infer that the 
paper and the ruler were pushed by the hand, 
since the hands followed them in their motion ? 
Certainly, upon the common doctrine of touch and 
go ; but these new philosophers will not allow us 
even this inference, and maintain that the odylic 
power moves both hand and paper. A most ver- 
satile, vicarious agent or power is this od. Well, 
odd as it is odd, we have given the tippers full swing, 
and we now administer their quietus. Fig. 2 is 
an illustration of our mode of annihilating odylic 
power and a positive cure for the malady of spirit- 
ual medium. Let the bodies of the tippers or me- 
diums be fastened or restrained from motion in any 
way back or forth, and then let their arms be 



Table-Tippings* 



91 



stretched straight out, as shown in the figure, and 
their hands locked, superposed, or placed in any- 
way they please upon the table. Sitting with 




the breast closely against the back of the chair is 
a convenient way of restraining the forward mo- 
tion. Now let them invoke the spirits, exert the 
will, let them cry out and howl, Belial won't come, 
the table won't move, for all the mediums of earth, 
and passive matter holds true to her law of inertia. 
If the table should be moved towards them, it will 
be seen that if the arms be kept straight, the hands 
keeping their position, will appear to move over 



92 Table-Tippings. 

the table. We take some credit to ourselves for 
this discovery, and we have been much surprised 
that men of science, men of mechanical minds who 
have witnessed table-tippings have never thought 
to apply some rule or test of mechanics to solve 
this mystery. * 

The very first thing to arrest our attention in 
table-tipping was the fact that the hands (no 
matter how lightly they pressed) moved always 
with the table back and forth ; and this suggested 
at once our mechanical tests. How strange it is 
that any mortal in possession of his senses, should 
move a table, and not know it ! And yet it is so, 
it has been so, but, we trust, it will be so no more. 
If any medium or tipper can gainsay this demon- 
stration, we should be glad to hear from him, and 
would like to employ him, at a high salary, as a 
mechanical agent, to overcome for us, in a multi- 
tude of ways, the operations of gravity and friction. 
The traders and merchants generally must have a 

* These experiments were made in February and March, 
1853, and, since the above was written, we are pleased to find 
that Faraday has taken the matter in hand, and pursued a 
course of investigation similar to our own. 



Table-Tippings. 93 

caio >f these tippers ; for, in buying and selling, 
they can tip the scales with more ease than tables. 
We have, however, no doubts as to the results, if 
any one will try these experiments fairly. It will 
be a cause of chagrin to some of those honest- 
minded tippers, who have all along been believing 
that the spirits tipped the table, and that they 
were in reality holding communion with their de- 
parted friends. If we prove the table-tipping to 
be the result of a muscular movement, we need 
not dwell upon the psychological phenomena of 
the extraordinary coincidences, messages, &c. They 
are all referable to that peculiar condition of mind, 
Infatuation, under which judgment is suspended, 
memory quickened, sensitiveness exalted, imagina- 
tion predominant, and involuntary actions in- 
duced. 



In concluding this work, we remark that our 
investigations have fastened error, mercenary mo- 
tives, imposture, and illusion upon those doings, so 



94 Table-Tippings. 

far as they have come under our observation. Our 
opportunities have been of the best kind as re- 
spects the rappings, for they were with the Fox 
girls, who were the leaders in this whole business 
of rappings and tippings ; and, suffice it to say, 
we effectually prevented their rapping. 

When error and falsehood are driven from one 
subterfuge they soon find another ; and as the stir- 
veillance of truth and science approaches their 
hiding places, they resort to more covert retreats ; 
and these girls may hereafter contrive some new 
mode of rapping not explicable upon our theory, 
but it is enough for us to know that it will be still 
a trick. We have had as wonderful performances 
related to us as have ever been heard of elsewhere ; 
but, upon close sifting, they have all proved to be 
within the pale of human conception. Doubtless 
all these tricks will assume different shapes from 
day to day and place to place, and the performances 
in England, France, and Germany, may all differ 
from ours and from each other. The tricks mast 
improve, in order to sustain their pecuniary value, 
or bolster reputation ; and however successful and 



Table-Tippings. 95 

impenetrable they may become, they are none the 
less tricks, and have one common origin. 

If any one deems that he hath a spirit, or any 
new power beyond jugglery, let him come, and we 
will welcome him with a close examination ; and 
if we are baffled, and cannot make our position 
good, he shall have the reward we have specified 
in a previous part of this work. Those who make 
these tricks their profession have the advantage of 
long practice, preparation, and confederacy ; but 
let them come and claim the prize, if they will 
and can. 

We have recently heard of some refined tricks 
at table-tipping, in which other preparations were 
made than the mere superposition of hands. Al- 
though we had rather see them than hear of them, 
we have only to say to those who may see them 
(or think they see them), Divest yourselves of all 
idea of the supernatural, or any new fluid, qv new 
law, or property whatever, and, regarding the per- 
formance either, as a trick or case of illusion, scru- 
tinize sharply every movement and circumstance 
in connection, and you will find that either the 



96 Table-Tippings. 

table does not move ; or, if it does move, you will 
see what actuates it. Eemember ! there are con- 
trolling and controllable agents that can raise a 
table from the floor ; but the action of the will, or 
the mere superposition of hands, never ! 



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